Affection Farming: Black Talon & The Esseles

08Jun

In a previous post on Legacy and Companions I mentioned the two entry level flash points as methods of farming affection with the starting companions for each class. Even though there are only eight different companions you can do this with, it was just a bit too much for an already lengthy post.

Unfortunately for us, this type of farming only helps with one of the Picky Companions, but any help you can get with them is welcome. Of the eight companions that you can do this with, three of them also share the same type of companion gift for their favorite, which makes this a much cheaper method of farming that affection on multiple characters than trying to buy every Weapon gift that hits the GTN.

How Flashpoint Farming Works
Each of these two flashpoints has a lot of dialogue in them, which is why they’re so great for farming affection. Each of the eight classes can do this, but only with the very first companion that they get. Both of these flashpoints have at least ten different conversations in which you have a chance to gain or lose affection. All you have to do is run the instance with your companion out and make the choices that they like most – simple.

This guide is going to look at maximizing affection gains with each companion. You’ll need to keep a couple of things in mind when you consider doing this:

Light/Dark Points: Maximizing affection with this type of farming means you’re going to make LS/DS choices based on what your companion likes rather than what you like. So if you’re trying to level a Dark character but your companion likes Light choices, then you’re going to have to take some Light points or you’ll have to get smaller amounts of affection.

Making opposing alignment choices isn’t going to destroy this type of farming, it’s just going to give you less overall than it otherwise would if you were to just please your companion. However, this guide does become somewhat nullified if you do not go for maximum affection gains because each of those Light/Dark choices is going to change up the dialogue in at least one of the other conversations. I will publish another guide for alignment-specific farming at a later date.

Soloing > Groups: Since the point of this type of farming is to maximize your affection with your companion, you want to be the one making all of the conversation choices, so you don’t want to do this with another player if you can handle it solo or else you’re going to gain only a portion of the total affection as you lose dialogue rolls to your party members.

Level Requirements: The lowest level I’ve managed to solo these flashpoints so far was with a 16 Sage and an 18 Sniper. I haven’t make a specific effort to solo it at the earliest level possible, but I can tell you from my experience what I was able to do just to give you a general idea of when you might want to try it yourself. If you’re playing a class that can heal or have a companion who can heal you, then you’ll have a better chance of soloing it earlier rather than later. Any class from their mid-to-late teens through level fifty can farm affection in this manner. On a level 50 you can skip everything but the bosses and do the whole run in around 15 minutes.

Empire: The Black Talon
In the table below, use the following key to know which conversation choices to take:

1, 2, 3 = the number you should choose to earn Affection

-1, -2, -3 = the number you should not press, as it is an Affection loss, other numbers net 0

12, 13, 23, 123 = any of these numbers give Affection

0 = none of the conversation options matter

Commas (,) separate conversation prompts.

The Black Talon

Conversation

Vette

Khem Val

Mako

Kaliyo

Lt. Sylas

3,3,0

3,3,0

2,0

3,0

NR-02

3,3,0,0

3,2,0,1

1,1,0,1

3,3,0,3

Imperial Lt.

2,3

1

2,3

1

NR-02

3,2,2,2,3,1

2,3,1,2,3,3

3,2,2,2,3,1

2,3,1,2,2,3

NR-02

2,3,2,2,3,2,1

3,0,1,3,1,2,3

2,0,1,2,1,2,1

3,0,1,3,1,2,3

Holo

3,3

3,1

3,1

3,3

Yadira

2,2

3

2,2

1,1

General

1,1,1,1

3,2,2,2

2,2,1,1

3,3,2,2

Holo

1

0

2

0

NR-02

0,2,3,2

3,2,0,2,2

1,2,3,2

3,2,0,2,2

Total Affection

+455

+455

+455

+455

Total Alignment

+200 Light

+200 Dark

+200 Light

+200 Dark

Republic: The Esseles
In the table below, use the following key to know which conversation choices to take:

1, 2, 3 = the number you should choose to earn Affection

-1, -2, -3 = the number you should not press, as it is an Affection loss, other numbers net 0

12, 13, 23, 123 = any of these numbers either gives Affection or prevents a loss of affection

0 = none of the conversation options matter

Commas (,) separate conversation prompts.

The Esseles

Conversation

T7-01

Qyzen

Corso

Jorgan

Passenger

1,1,0,1,1

3,1,3,12,1

12,2,23,1,1

1,1,1,2,1

Off. Haken

0,0,0,0,0,0,0

0,1,3,0,0,1,0

0,0,0,0,0,0

0,0,0,0,0,0

Cmd. Narlock

1

13

3

1

Cmd. Narlock

1,1,1,1,1,1

1,1,1,23,2,1

12,0,1,12,1,1

2,2,3,1,1,1

Communication Console

1,1,1,1,1,1

3,2,13,1,1,2

13,1,1,1,1,2

1,2,1,1,1,3

Amb. Asara

2,1,1,1

1,2,2,3

2,12,12,0

3,1,1,1

Bridge

1

23

3

1

Off. Haken

0,0

0,0

0,0

0,0

Elevator (Haken)

2,2,1

2,0,2

3,12,1

2,1,2

Power Station

13,1

2,2

3,1

Hanger Door

1,1

2,3

3,0,3

1,0,1

Amb. Asara

1,1,1

1

1

1

Off. Haken

1

0,0,0,0

0,0,0,0

0,0,0,0

Total Affection

+455

+455

+380

+515

Total Alignment

+250 Light

+250 Light

+250 Light

+250 Light

How Effective Is It, Really?
In the grand scheme of things, these runs are going to net you somewhere around 400 affection with your companion, give or take about 50 based on your Light/Dark options and how they relate to your companion’s Light/Dark preference.

If you were to relate that to companion gifts, this is roughly 3-4 blue quality Rank 5 Favorites. If I were to relate that to the credits you would spend for those gifts on the GTN based on the two server economies that I’m familiar with, you’re saving right around 14,000 – 18,000 credits. That’s not bad for something that can be done in under 15-20 minutes on a high level character or 30-45 minutes on a lower level.

In terms of time investment, this certainly isn’t your fastest option when compared to giving gifts (assuming you have enough gifts), but it is typically going to be faster than doing normal questing unless you want to go research every quest in the game to find out which are the best ones for affection and figuring out exactly how to path through all of those top quests in the most efficient way.

Also, keep in mind there are still some glitched in SWTOR conversations and sometimes you’ll choose an option that I say gives you Affection and you’ll get nothing. If this happens to you, just press the Escape key to exit the conversation and start it over. Also remember that some of the options I gave you up there are options to avoid a loss of Affection rather than to gain it, so if you go through the conversation a second time and still don’t get any then it’s probably one of those times.

You get the most out of this type of farming if your companions Light/Dark choice matches your own and you are able to farm both affection and LS/DS at the same time. Going a step further, but adding extra time, you can even farm Social Points if you’re willing to run it with another person. Time is added in this case because in order to maximize your affection gains you need to win all of the relative rolls for conversation so your partner either needs to let all of the choices time out for them so that you win by default, or you’ll need to constantly reset the conversation if they keep rolling higher than you.

You can farm affection and social points with another player at the same time and just having both of you choose the options that fit your character. However, doing that will once again nullify this guide unless you’re running with a class that literally has all of the same conversation options as you because changing conversation changes which prompts are given to you which throws the guide off. Two of the same class can rock this type of farming very quickly, reducing total run time, but also reducing total affection gained as whoever wins the rolls gets the affection.

Patch 1.3 is potentially going to remove the ability to farm Social Points from these runs when you do it on characters above the appropriate level. So if you want to farm social while you do it, then you better get started here pretty soon or else you may miss your opportunity. You’ll still be able to farm both while playing a low level character, but your high levels will need to do it before the patch.

I don’t know exactly why they decided to nerf the social gains, but I suspect because it was such a ridiculously easy thing to farm with high level characters and they would rather you get social from doing things your own level. But if the point of social points is to be, you know, social, then shouldn’t you get rewarded for doing things with other people regardless of what the activity is?

I think it’s just too much affection in an area that’s too low level so it essentially undermines the concept they have in mind for it. I don’t think there’s a level restriction on Social levels though, so you could probably just farm the crap out of it at level 10 until you officially outlevel the place.

Perhaps, but that would really suck. I hate any form of grinding. If I’m getting extra perks for doing something I’d do anyway in the game, great. But if I have to go out of my way to do something that is not otherwise beneficial, I’m out. So my Assassin will probalby never get the Imperial Pilot Gear.

I’m not a fan of mindless grinding either. Social points are easier to get now than they were pre-1.2, but even leveling with Fyn from 1-50 we don’t have enough points for the majority of the social items.

Our guild will on occasion do what we call social runs. We meet up and run through these flashpoints at story level with all level toons. It gets us social points and everyone knows to spacebar the convos so the runs are really quick. Make sure to use a social point booster for bonus points.

I just tested this out after the 4.0 change. Affection has been replaced with “influence,” but these conversation options still grant it, so not only is this guide still relevant but it just became hugely useful – influence has a very large impact on crafting bonuses and even if you aren’t running around with your first companion, you can put them to work.

I am extremely curious about whether running Esseles will gain influence with these companions after recruiting them through the Alliance system on another class, but I am not yet in a position to test that. I’ll be able to report back in a few days. :D

With the new influence system replacing affection, you can get around 7k influence per run with the legacy perk that increases influence gains via conversations, so about 35 or 36 runs to max out to 50 influence lol.